Driving onwards

Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north. ... As he peered ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.
--E. B. White

As we arise from the muddy ditch that was 2011, may the skies that lie ahead in 2012 shine brightly about us. May we find ourselves headed in the right direction, whatever that right direction might be and wherever it may lead us.

Happy New Year!

Suffer the little children ...

Two New York Times stories out of Illinois, this week.

The first story is that of Lamar West. Lamar was taken from his birth parents, for reasons related to drug abuse, when he was four. He was adopted by Frankie Lee West when he was five. His birth records were changed to show his adoption. His surname was changed to that of his adoptive mother. He became part of a large family, some adopted and some the natural children of his new mother.

From what I can glean from the story, he lived a normal childhood. At age 17, he moved out of the house for a few months, because of over-crowding, but kept in regular contact with his mom. He then returned to his house. It was empty. As Lamar puts it, his mother had "upped and went."

Lamar was abandoned one month before he turned 18. Eighteen is the age when adoptive parents in Illinois stop receiving state assistance. Lamar is now 20. He's had one brief phone call with his mother. She did not invite him back. He has since married and has a child of his own. He still misses the family in which he was raised.

The NYT writer points out that this is a common problem in Illinois. Abandoned children over 18 are adults. The state has no further responsibility for them, financial or otherwise. Many end up on the street, homeless.

"D.C.F.S. is aware that not all placements are perfect matches", the article notes.

The second article, also in the New York Times, reports that the Catholic bishops of Illinois have closed down most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois. Catholic Charities is one of the largest social service organizations in the nation, providing services to poor persons of all faiths. Sixty percent of its income is from government programs. Three percent comes from diocesan and parish funds. The rest comes from charitable contributions and investments.

Among the services provided by Catholic Charities in Illinois is arrangement of adoptions. Last summer, Illinois's attorney general told the organization that it must henceforth comply with the state's anti-discrimination laws. Therefore, in determinating suitability of adoptive parents, it could no longer consider whether the parents were of the same or opposite sexes.

Rather than permit Catholic Charities to place children with same-sex parents, the Illinois bishops have shut down the entire organization within Illinois.

The bishops feel their religious freedom is being attacked. "In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill.

A teacher from Marion, Ill., Tim Kee, and his long time partner, Rick Wade, both Catholic, tried to adopt through Catholic Charities. They were turned down.

I'm not sure what lesson, if any, can be drawn from considering these two stories together. Certainly, churches should not be forced to act against their principles. But what if the church were one that had religious objections to mixed marriages? How should the state react to a religious organization that refused, on principle, to allow a white male and African-American female (or vice versa), to adopt a child of any race?

Illinois is seeing skyrocketing numbers of "failed adoptions," as kids who were adopted 15 years or so ago are now turning 18. The motive for many of those adoptions, it now seems, was financial. "Not all placements are perfect matches," as the the NYT article summarizes the state's position. At the same time, the state has been providing over sixty percent of the operating budgets of an agency -- unquestionably an excellent and highly responsible provider of services -- that won't permit a school teacher and his long time partner to adopt a child -- for no reason other than that they are not of opposite sexes.

The bishops of Illinois have thus made the decision that it is preferable to allow the state's bureaucratic placement of a child with a single parent whose only motive is to receive state assistance payments -- or to allow the child to grow to maturity living in an orphanage -- rather than itself place the child with two men or women who -- presumably -- would raise the child in a loving and stable environment.

Maybe they are correct. They no doubt are acting in accord with their sincere convictions. But maybe, with a little thought and a little prayer, they could figure out a course of action that considers the immediate impact of their actions upon the lives of others, not merely their actions' conformity with abstract principles.

Knocking off No. 7

On December 24, the afternoon before Christmas, I was doing last minute shopping at a mini-mall in the town of Big Bear Lake, California. I would have felt less tired -- less stressed, perhaps -- if I'd known what a home town boy from Big Bear Lake was doing at the same moment.

In May 2010, I wrote a post praising the accomplishments of 13-year-old Jordan Romero, the boy who'd just become the youngest person ever to climb Everest. At the age of 10, when he climbed Africa's Kilimanjaro, Jordan decided to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents. Everest was number six; only Antarctica remained. He hoped to climb the Vinson Massif the following December.

His climb was delayed for a year, but on December 24, 2011, he completed the climb. At the age of 15 years, 5 months and 12 days, he was the youngest person to ever climb the "Seven Summits." According to Wikipedia, China has now joined Nepal in prohibiting climbs of Everest by persons under 16. Jordan's record therefore looks pretty safe for the foreseeable future.

The young man's steadfast determination over the past five years -- not only to complete each grueling climb, but to persist in the training required before and between climbs -- is inspiring. He demonstrates that our frequent stereotype of his age group -- a bunch of lazy kids playing with their electronic toys -- is only a stereotype. Not many young people will accomplish this much, this early -- but many of them are following their own stars, whether athletic, academic, entrepreneurial, with dedication and enthusiasm.

I haven't bothered checking the on-line comments about Jordan's latest achievement by the commentators who I found so irritating in my earlier post, but I assume they're still there, still criticizing and scoffing at anyone who dares to accomplish anything they can't or won't. The ranks of this on-line chorus have been described as bitter young adults, unemployed and wedded to their computers while living in their parents' basement. Another unfair stereotype, probably, but I can live with it.

Again, my congratulations to Jordan Romero, and to his parents who supported him so strongly in his efforts (and to Jordan's father, especially, who joined his son in making each climb).

Christmas chiaroscuro

Not a crock pot.

At least, I don't think so. The doubt I suggested earlier -- whether my new Kindle would turn out to be one of those gadgets that, once purchased, I would consign to a dark corner of the basement, never to be seen again -- was apparently unfounded.

During my train trip last week -- to Los Angeles, to join family for Christmas -- between my eating in the diner, drinking in the club car, talking to relatives who joined the train mid-journey in the Bay Area, and simply staring out the window and daydreaming -- I managed to read, in its entirety, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Once I arrived at our rented cabin at Big Bear Lake -- between my eating incessantly, drinking when not eating, talking to relatives who descended on Big Bear from all over the West Coast, and simply staring out the window at the snow, the trees and the deep blue sky -- I managed to read, in its entirety, Blue Nights, by Joan Didion.

My Kindle proved as helpful and as easy to use as I'd hoped. The two books I chose to read were well-written, fascinating, and possibly worthy of a future blog or two in their own right. Extremely Loud is about death, loss of loved ones, and the inability to know the ones you love even while they still live, told against a backdrop of (to some extent) the firebombing of Dresden and (to a significant extent) the catastrophe of Nine-Eleven in New York City. Blue Nights is about death, loss of loved ones, and the inability to know the ones you love even while they still live, told against a backdrop of the apprehension by its 75-year-old author that she not only was no longer a kid, but was, in fact, showing obvious and disturbing signs of mortality.

Ho ho ho! And a Merry Christmas to you all, boys and girls!

But like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and the tombstone etched with Ebeneezer's own name, my Kindle reading projected merely a dark background, against which the joyful revels of Christmas were rendered even sharper and more colorful -- a sense of temporality that caused one to welcome even more the warm company of close family, the renewal of acquaintance with distant family, and casual conversations with interesting family friends I'd never before met.

I'd hardly claim as an original observation that awareness of life's shortness often intensifies one's enjoyment of life's presence. Luckily for the progress of mankind, knowledge of our mortality isn't usually a debilitating depressant.

So I had a great time at Big Bear, despite (or because of) writings on my Kindle cautioning me to enjoy the present while it's still here to be enjoyed -- to shoo away the ghosts of the future, and join the guests celebrating at the banquet table of Christmas Present.

I'll have one more plate of turkey, Bob Cratchit, if I might? And God bless us, every one!

South by rail

Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.¹


Some of my earliest hazy memories are of riding on overnight trains from Portland down the Willamette Valley, to visit my great grandparents on a farm. And slightly later, I have a much clearer recollection of traveling by sleeper with my mother and brother to Sacramento, where an aunt picked us up and drove us up to Donner Lake, near Lake Tahoe.

These early experiences -- memories dimmed by the swirling fogs of very early childhood -- may have exerted a permanent impact on my brain's later development, because I can't remember a time during my life that I haven't loved train travel. As a 14-year-old, I took the Empire Builder back to Chicago -- three days and two nights all by myself, sitting and sleeping in a coach seat -- to visit a former school friend. During college, I made three round trips a year between my home in Washington and school in California. Overseas for my university's "study abroad" program, I traveled all over Europe during school breaks -- always by train.

Nowadays, it's much faster, simpler, and usually cheaper to fly than it is to ride by train. Nevertheless, tomorrow at 9:45 a.m., I'll find myself boarding Amtrak's Coast Starlight, bound for Southern California, where I'll join family for Christmas. I'll arrive at Burbank -- the last stop before Los Angeles -- at 8:15 p.m. Thursday night. No longer a starving, penniless student -- carefully avoiding the expense of European hotels by sitting up overnight in a second class compartment -- I now allow myself the luxury of splurging on a roomette in a sleeping car.

But coach or sleeper, the basic attractions are the same. For 35 hours, I'll be isolated from the "real" world. No chores to do. Nothing expected of me. I can read in comfort for uninterrupted hours, or stare blankly out the window, hypnotized by the blur of scenery rushing past. If I feel restless, I can walk to one of the lounge cars, have a beer, and meet or observe other travelers. If I chose -- which I don't -- I could spend much of the trip staring at screens in a darkened room devoted to arcade games. Some long distance trains -- I'm not sure about the Coast Starlight -- even show movies in a small theater.

The sweet tedium of the day is broken regularly by meals in the diner -- meals that, for sleeping car passengers, are included in the fare. These meals, for the first few years after Amtrak took over from Southern Pacific, were barely edible at best, but they are now surprisingly good. Perhaps not the same haute cuisine that luxury trains like the AT&SF's Super Chief are said to have offered before World War II, during the glory days of train travel, but they're a notch above those offered by casual chain restaurants.

The seats of the roomette convert to a bed with linen, blankets and pillows at night. I find them extremely comfortable, and the rocking and swaying of the railway car conducive to a very relaxing sleep. Of course, I've always slept happily sitting up in coach, as well, so maybe you shouldn't rely on my recommendation!

I've found that mankind can be divided into two groups: those who love train travel, and those who wonder why anyone would waste 35 hours of his life to travel a distance he could reach in a little over two hours by plane. It's these little differences between people that make life interesting, right? Anyway, I'm pleased to fall into the first category.

"Coast Starlight, now boarding on Track Three, bound for Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia, Kelso-Longview, Vancouver, Portland, .... and Los Angeles. All Aboard!"

See you folks after Christmas!
------------------------------------
¹Steve Goodman, "City of New Orleans."

Sail on, Gray Lady, sail on by

Yahoo News seems to be the first on the internet with the news that Janet Robinson, CEO of the New York Times, is resigning at the end of the month. Her departure is attributed to shareholder discontent with share value, resulting from inadequate revenue from subscriptions and advertising.

I might have used this news as a springboard for discussing the woes that confront print journalism nationwide, as newspapers find themselves faced with ever-increasing competition from free on-line news sites and blogs, at the time of a poor national economy.

Instead, I choose to note the almost universal chortling of joy expressed in anonymous on-line comments to the article, declaring the Gray Lady to be a worthless liberal rag, good only for lining bird cages. The sooner she dies the better.

I have a lifelong friend, a passionate conservative, who proudly declares that he never reads the NYT -- wouldn't allow the filthy propaganda sheet in his house. As a liberal who regularly reads the Fox News website, just to see what arguments are coming from the other side, I find this attitude hard to understand.

Newspapers offer readers a continuum of quality. There are terrible British newspapers -- many of them -- that I'd never bother reading, not so much because I disagree with their editorial policy as because they're full of sensationalistic nonsense. But there are few American papers, at least ones with a national following, that arouse that response in me. Right wing, left wing, or moderate -- most papers try to walk the perilous tightrope of bringing legitimate news to the community while still making a profit for their owners or shareholders.

But they do differ in quality. If an apolitical alien dropped down from Outer Space, and did his best to expunge every iota of bias from Fox News and the New York Times -- an impossible task, apart from the opinion page, since every decision selecting stories for publication rests on the editor's subjective sense of what he considers "important" and "newsworthy" -- the disparity between the two would be obvious and dramatic. Fox News would then be seen as combining many features of USA Today with certain features of People magazine. With even a dash of seasoning, perhaps, from National Enquirer.

The NYT, on the other hand, would still come close to justifying its somewhat overstated claim of being "America's Newspaper of Record." In the Times, you find in-depth reporting of international and national news that you simply can't find elsewhere in a newspaper format. But political news is only a fraction of what you get for your two bucks at the news stand -- over a week's time, you also receive detailed news -- by writers with expertise in their fields -- of music, arts, popular culture, books, fashion, business, sports. If I were totally uninterested in politics and international relations, I'd still subscribe to the NYT for its daily reporting of those other areas of life in which I did have an interest.

I'm not sure, on the other hand, that any of my right wing friends would bother to click on Fox News (or watch it on TV) if it weren't for the political slanting that the site offers.

The New York Times is not going to die, despite the fervent wishes of on-line commentators, any more than the Wall Street Journal will die, despite my own occasional raised eyebrows with respect to its editorial policy. Both newspapers are major assets in the world of American (and world) journalism. We would be a more poorly informed nation without them.

Requiem for a refuge

Yesterday, George Whitman, 98, died in Paris. The New York Times notes that he had owned his bookstore overlooking the Seine, Shakespeare & Company, since 1951. His store, named Le Mistral until 1964, was a mecca and refuge for the post-World War II generation of American expatriate writers, and the spiritual heir of the original Shakespeare & Company, run by Sylvia Beach during the 1920's.

His death occurred, ironically, on the same date as my post announcing that I had purchased a Kindle.

These two events were on my mind today, as I walked out of Barnes & Noble in University Village. For several months, I'd been noticing that the shelves had grown smaller and smaller, and spaced farther and farther apart. I'd been worrying that B&N was focusing its attention excessively on Nook, its own version of Kindle, rather than on promoting the sale of physical books. Today I learned the worst possible news -- the Village's B&N is closing its doors at the end of this month.

My readers are undoubtedly familiar with Barnes & Noble. The Village store is a massive yet warm and welcoming establishment. Two expansive floors, which, for years, were packed densely with books covering every possible subject matter. Alcoves with easy chairs and library tables -- one of the alcoves upstairs graced with a gas fireplace. A large recordings department, carrying an impressive inventory of classical CDs. Areas where authors were invited to give readings. A mezzanine Starbucks where you could linger over the books you'd just purchased -- or might still decide to purchase.

I often spent an entire afternoon at Barnes & Noble, browsing and reading books (books that I sometimes purchased, although not often enough, it seems), ending my visit by dallying for a half hour over latte, surrounded by poster caricatures of famous authors, while watching customers wander about the first floor below. Students would crowd tables doing homework, researching from books from the store's shelves. No one was hurried or asked to leave. As did Shakespeare & Company itself, the store offered a haven, at least for the day, to anyone with time on his hands and a love of books in his heart. The store's ambience was as much library as bookstore, but a library that was far cozier and less institutional than our downtown public library.

Halcyon bygone days. Wandering about the maze-like stacks of the Village store came close to matching my own personalized image of heaven. One of those joys you never quite appreciate, unfortunately, until you lose it.

Barnes & Noble still has a large store downtown that I often visit. That outlet is a fine place to shop around and buy a book -- but it's crowded with shoppers and it's bustling. Intentionally or not, it doesn't encourage idle shoppers to linger for hours, reading books without necessarily paying for them. It's not "cozy."

With the downtown Borders having shut down earlier this year when its parent company went bankrupt, and with the closing now of the Village B&N, I wonder if it's only a matter of time until all large bookstores shut their doors.

I left the store this afternoon, picturing that moment a couple of weeks from now when the last customer walks out the door, the last latte is pulled, the gas fireplace is extinguished for good, the remaining inventory is boxed up and returned to the publishers. The sky seemed grayer, the drizzle more drizzly, as I walked away.

Is it all Kindle from now on? George Whitman may have sensed that now was a good time to quietly depart the scene.

Kindling my desire

A month ago, I penned (keyboarded) a hymn to the printed page. Books were my life, I declared piously.

Today, I stand shamefaced before you and announce: "I've bought myself a Kindle."

Why would I do such a thing, you ask. I guess the proximate cause for my downfall was my experience while on trek in October. Pascal, my travel buddy, brought his Kindle in place of the paperbacks he lugged around on past trips. The device was attractive, slim, easy to hold in one hand; its screen was incredibly easy to read. He electronically bookmarked pages he found interesting, and highlighted passages, just like a college student. He instantaneously checked an internal dictionary for words whose meaning escaped him. He announced -- at least daily(!) -- the exact percentage still to go of the book he was reading. Had he needed new reading material, he would have had immediate digital access to Amazon's inventory. He even -- and this is amazing, although of questionable utility -- was able to beckon the book to read aloud to him.

I know. The decadence is breathtaking.

Of course, I had to get one. Whatever longwinded justifications I might offer you now, we all know the real reason. The Kindle was just too cool for me to resist.

I've downloaded one book from Amazon -- it cost me about $10. I've read a few pages, just to savor the experience, but I'm really saving my first "Kindle experience" for a lengthy train trip I'll be taking next week. It's while I travel that I expect Kindle to be so worthwhile and convenient. Here at home, on the other hand, I'm about half way through the new George Kennan biography -- a dense, heavy, hardback volume that I balance precariously and uncomfortably on one knee while my two cats face off for possession of the other.

The Kennan bio is a serious book, and its size and weight confirm its seriousness. It's a satisfying book to pick up and hold with both hands. I find myself constantly turning back to past chapters, confirming my recall of what I'd read earlier. The book, in all its physicality, will be a permanent addition to my library, a valuable resource to which I'll undoubtedly refer in the future.

A landmark biography of a renowned diplomat and framer of foreign policy requires shelf space. It's just not appropriate Kindle fodder.

But I think Kindle will be well adapted to reading fiction. I generally read novels straight though, without doing much searching back to re-read earlier portions. Once I've read a novel, moreover, I generally shelve it, never to be looked at again. I'll be adding fewer new works of fiction to shelves from now on, but I won't miss them.

And, of course -- (did I mention?) -- my totally awesome Kindle can store about 3,000 books: my once-read novels will all be there should I actually ever need them again.

I know it's not obvious, but I'm kind of excited, behind my calm and equable exterior. Kindle will be a new and powerful tool, and a supplement to my library of printed volumes. It unleashes all the dynamism of the future.

Unless, of course, it turns out to be no more than 2011's version of the 1970's crock pot -- an item everyone just had to own -- and one that's been tucked away, unused and out of sight, during the decades since it was purchased.

Tickling the ivories

As promised in my last posting, I won't describe my own performance at today's piano recital. Except to say that I was able to complete my piece without collapsing or requiring resuscitation.

But the recital experience itself -- my first since I was maybe 12 or 13 -- is worth a brief mention.

Ten pianists besides myself performed. They ranged in age from an unbelievably tiny young man of perhaps three, up to a boy and girl who appeared to be in their early teens. Eight of the performers were of Asian background. I mention this as but one more piece of evidence -- in one more area of life -- that Asian-American kids are positioning themselves to outshine their peers from other ethnic groups in tomorrow's America.

In the audience, besides those of us waiting to perform (or slowly reviving from our completed performance), were parents, siblings, and other proud relatives; our piano teacher herself; and an administrator from the music school who was taking photos of each cute child (and me, I presume) at the piano. In other words, it was a small audience, and not at all intimidating -- parents were all holding their breath through their own offspring's playing, and responding with appreciative applause to the performances of others.

The music ranged from Skateboard Doodle by a little tyke who obviously wished he were elsewhere, to rather sophisticated pieces by Mozart and Shostakovich by the two teenagers. I enjoyed it all: the serious efforts by the smallest kids, the stumblings by a boy about 12 who obviously hadn't practiced and was playing under protest, and the accomplished playing of familiar classical or semi-classical pieces (some in simplified arrangements) by the older half of the cast.

Here we were, two weeks before Christmas, with feverish shopping to be done. NFL games were on TV. It was a cold night, and the church in which the recital took place was also cold. But a little gathering of young people and their moms and dads made room in their lives to celebrate modest musical accomplishments. In a world of electronics and rock and roll and obsession with professional sports, parents implicitly acknowledged that the best gift and best educational experience they could give their kids was to willingly attend, listen to their children and others play, and show appreciation for their efforts by applause and hugs.

For a short time, playing the piano -- an ancient form of mastery that served as a goal for generations of kids before computer games came along -- was the most important fact in the universe.

It was nice.